“Jones is expected to play a key role in the Obama administration. According to U.S. press reports, he will be as strong as Henry Kissinger, the all-powerful national security adviser to President Richard Nixon.”

Under Bush:

Jones was appointed to the NATO post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the overlapping, essentially co-terminous one of Commander, United States European Command (COMUSEUCOM) in the first Bush term and is part of the two-thirds of the Obama administration’s foreign policy triumvirate – National Security Adviser, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense – inherited from the preceding administration.

During his tenure Jones has not been reticent about his intentions:

Jones has been president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. Until his Dec. 1 selection by Obama, he also served as a board member of the Chevron Corp.” (Houston Chronicle, December 25, 2008)

Establishing such a group [military task force in West Africa] could also send a message to U.S. companies ‘that investing in many parts of Africa is a good idea,’ the general said.” [U.S. Department of Defense, August 18, 2006)

And, just as candidly, he and his NATO civilian cohort declared:
“NATOs’ executives are ready to use warships to ensure the security of offshore oil and gas transportation routes from Western Africa, reportedly said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General, speaking at the session of foreign committee of PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]. “On April 30 General James Jones, commander-in-chief of NATO in Europe, reportedly said NATO was going to draw up the plan for ensuring security of oil and gas industry facilities. “In this respect the block is willing to ensure security in unstable regions where oil and gas are produced and transported.” (Trend News Agency, May 3, 2006)

Note that while speaking to those he assumes to be interested and complicit parties, Jones is quite candid in moving his finger across the map of the world and indicating precisely where the Pentagon’s – not the State Department’s, say, or the US Department of Energy’s – priorities lie.

Interviewed in his headquarters in Stuttgart in Germany by the “Wall Street Journal”, the boss of the European command of the U.S. Army, General James Jones (photo-against), is categorical. For three years, 70% of his time and all that of his deputy, General Chuck Wald, is devoted to Africa. With three obsessions in mind: radical Islam, energy security and the growing influence of China on the continent. The fact that all three are gathered around the Chadian crisis clearly explains the keen interest shown by American diplomats and military to the latest developments of the situation in N’Djamena.

Jones interest in Africa was reported in the Ghanaian news Insight in 2006, from GhanaWeb:

Marine General James L. Jones, Head of the US European Command, who made the disclosure said the Pentagon was seeking to acquire access to two kinds of bases in Senegal, Ghana, Mali and Kenya and other African Countries.

The new US strategy based on the conclusions of May 2001 report of the President�s National Energy Policy Development group chaired by Vice President Richard Cheney and known as the Cheney report. …

In its efforts to promote greater diversity in oil supplies, the Bush Administration is focusing its attention on six African countries, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Chad and Equatorial Guinea. …

The major risks associated with hosting US military installation include terrorist attacks, the destruction of national culture and more direct US control over the lives of the host people

The picture above, of Jones with with Rwanda’s President Kagame is from this 2005 article about military cooperation between the US and Rwanda.

I just heard Hilary Clinton, as Secretary of State (MSNBC Thursday January 22) talking about bringing the 3 Ds, Defense, Diplomacy, and Development. She was followed on the broadcast by a clip of Vice President Biden also speaking about the 3 Ds, but emphsizing the diplomacy and development angle. The 3 Ds have been touted numerous times by spokepersons for AFRICOM. It will be easy to tell what they mean by this. Look at the budget. Where is the money being appropriated and how is it being spent?

And for anyone who knows African history, 3 Ds sounds like a cynically mocking reference to the 19th century 3 Cs, in which Europe was going to bring Africa Commerce, Christianity, and Civilization. We all know how well that worked for Africa. If you need a refresher see Scramble for Africa, or King Leopold’s Ghost, a saga whose murderous ramifications continue to this day. And if you want to see exactly what 3 Cs, now 3 Ds are doing today, Click here to view the 8 minute video Curse of the Black Gold. Or read the book Curse of the Black Gold, and look at the pictures. Considering what happened with the 3 Cs, I am continually surprised to hear US spokespersons speaking as though the 3 Ds are anything other than an insult. As Omotaylor at the AfricanLoft said, upon hearing of the 3 Ds: “I see the 3 Fs in their endeavour, – Foolery, Fallacy and Failure.”

With two of Obama’s three major foreign policy positions going to people who were architects of AFRICOM under Bush, Gates as Secretary of Defense, and Jones as a powerful National Security Advisor, it does not look like there will be much of a change in approach. When it comes to US military designs on the continent of Africa, creating proxy wars, manipulating governments, and recolonizing the people who live there are likely to continue. This will be done for the sake of US resource hegemony. I think Clinton is tough, but I don’t know if her focus and interest are all that different from Jones and Gates. I truly hope I am wrong in all this, that Obama has better intentions. I’ll continue to watch the evidence.

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9 Responses to “AFRICOM’s new Kissinger?”

looks like EUCOM has just recently pulled their online copy of jones’ delivery of that combatant command’s posture stmt before the senate armed services committee in 2005, but here’s an excerpt

We must craft a policy that recognizes the growing strategic importance of Africa and its potential to become the next front in the Global War on Terrorism. African security issues will continue to directly affect our homeland security. It appears that we have a small window of opportunity to make relatively modest near-term investments to avoid massive problems requiring U.S. intervention in the future that could prove costly.

if there was any english language coverage of such a threat in somali media, it eluded my eyes

in the u.s., there is a media propaganda campaign to conflate somalis returning home to somalia w/ terrorism & extremism

think of eritrea’s isaias what you may, but it’s hard to disagree w/ his [chomsky-like] assessment that

US policy, especially towards the end of the Bush Administration, is aimed at seeking alternatives to control and dominate the world through creating pretexts under what they call national security strategy agenda. It is not a secret that after the end of World War Two the global adventurism of the US Administration with a view to quenching the interest of minority groups through military means. As stated on a number of occasions, the Administration has always to find a pretext for its adventurism. Many of the pretexts are their creation. Other pretexts are made by complicating the already existing problems in order for them to find an excuse to interfere. This is made under the pretext of terrorism, piracy, instability and so forth. You have to first ask what the US military strategy is. How is it executed? Where? For it might differ from region to region. The United States has partitioned the world into different blocs of influence and has established military commands in each bloc. How did this happen after the Second World War? How was it developed? It has much historical background.

…

After 9/11 the logic initiated to fighting terrorism has encouraged the US Administration to embark on more global adventurism. One could also argue that the ill conceived terrorism has been their creation. The global concern of terrorism has been taken as a pretext to take military action and thereby plunder the resources of those countries targeted. The Horn of Africa and Northern Africa are situated in a very volatile location. The strategic maritime gateways, i.e. Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal connecting Europe, America and other maritime destinations are located in this region. The Gulf States which are very rich in oil resources are located adjacent to the Red Sea. Hence, the region due to its strategic location has been the center of complex conflicts, out of which many have been instigated by external forces aimed at monopolizing the rich oil resources. Thus, in their efforts to control the rich resources, they have to have military presence in the region.

…

The rationale for the formation of AFRICOM is to combat the so-called terrorism. All the excuses brought on the table were, however, found not to be substantive. In real terms, AFRICOM is another establishment like those of the AU, Security Council, and IGAD which are instruments of the US in its quest to control the world. As we have come to understand through time, the formation of the only command in Djibouti is not to combat terrorism but to develop terrorism and find pretext for interference. Had there been a real motive to combat terrorism, it could have been left for the countries of the region, for they are the ones that are familiar with the region. The countries of the Horn, however, have been sidelined and crippled, and in the absences of a strong regional cooperation to fight terrorism the US is striving to pave way for its unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of other states which ultimately would safeguard its exploitation of resources. The program for the formation of the military command, in its essence, is not to combat terrorism but to serve other motives.

that is, of course, a central thread in the long essay i wrote on AFRICOM two years ago.

the continent of africa is becoming, as jones put it in 2005, the next front in the GWOT because it is rich in resources & human capital (for international “peacekeeping” forces, for one), and is the focus of a new global scramble – how many international navies are now floating off the coast of somalia?

and, while i’m speaking so much of somalia in this comment, here’s a story from mareeg online thursday

The US ambassador in Kenya Michael Rannerbeger has revealed that he had pushed the acting president of Somalia and parliament speaker Aden Mohamed Nor ‘Madobe’ to change his mind from holding the presidential election in Baidoa town, southwest of Somalia.

Speaking to a group of Somali lawmakers in Nairobi , Mr. Rannerbeger, the US ambassador in Nairobi said the house speaker accepted to divert the occasion of presidential election into Djibouti.

“the ambassador told us that he had talked with Aden Madobe and persuaded him to allow that the election should be held in Djibouti and I said to Rennerbeger if we could get a place that we can cast freely our vote we are ready to go,” Ismael Mohamed Hurre Buba, member of parliament told Waagacusub media.

Mr. Buba said Rannerbeger’s meeting with the MPs ended successfully. “The US government also raised important issues relating to building up the coming Somalia government” added Buba. “The new government of Barrack Obama promised to help Somali’s unity government to establish its security,”

In a telephone contact with Waagacusub Media, Mr. Aden Madobe, the acting president of Somalia declined to talk about his current political change but confirmed the meeting with the US ambassador.

…

Somalia is going to have a unity government as Washington is planning to make prime minister Nor Adde as the country’s president, reliable sources said.

Sheik Sharif Ahmed, the leader of Allaince of re-liberation of Somalia who is unpleas[ed] with the candidacy of Nor Adde is due to announce his candidacy as president of Somalia next week.

the u.s. is really pushing hard for a new president to be named w/i the 30 days after he left upon jendayi frazer’s threat of siccing the ICC on him for war crimes charges during their quick meetup at the airport in nairobi several days before he gathered up his loyalists & returned to puntland (and now on to yemem, apparently, whose govt has stated that they are granting a request for asylum)

obama may be naming new old africa hands at foggy bottom, but ranneberger is still the ground ‘operative’ in charge of u.s. policy for somalia. (check out the guy’s c.v. and tell me he’s not an agency man). this move to hold the elections in djibouti even goes against the faux djibouti agreement that washington has tried to impose on somali’s – the announced parliament expansion will not figure in to this. not that there’s many parliamentarians left in baidoa anyhow — reports indicate that we’re talking a couple dozen hanging around by now — but the increased representation was a dealmaker for the compromised wing of the ARS (the usa’s idealized “good muslims”) to even sign the final papers & now sheikh sharif is getting a reality check that — no matter how coerced, bribed, tricked, whatever — when you deal w/ the devil you’ll eventually get burned

I’ve been wondering about Ranneberger’s continuing career. I’m getting the feeling he will stay in place, or go somewhere he can cause even more trouble. He has been active all along regardless of political changes here. I’d like to see him and Frazier sacked, but I sure won’t hold my breath. He has been around causing problems for so long I doubt anyone will try to lay a finger on him. Frazier might be more vulnerable.

I recognized the theme from your work, to which I am greatly indebted. That is a nice summary. When I first read about AFRICOM I went huh? and not again! But I kind of hoped that it wasn’t what it looked like. Your writing and research left little doubt as to what was going on and got me started digging.

I did see some mention of “shabab” as a terrorist threat in the US. Another huh? That struck me as pure fantasy. I need to look at that story some more. And why is Feingold pushing that narrative? cui bono? and how?

Very weird about the Somali election in Djibouti, or maybe not so weird, but nothing to do with democracy either, not with the land of the free and the home of the brave stirring the pot.

What I don’t have a sense of is how much oil in Somalia. I get the impression that estimates are mostly speculative, that there is some, but it might not be that much. Or possibly a lot, but it isn’t known. How much of these “peace operations” are for theoretical, or known Somali oil, and how much because of its geographic location in terms of moving oil around.

sorry about the typos in my first comment – hard to review longish comments in that little text area ;-)

— — —

on the reports of a threat to the u.s. inauguration, the lifespan of that story in press only lasted that one day. i haven’t found any follow-up press on it. probably b/c it wasn’t really a real threat. a los angeles times article at the time stated<

The official said the threat did not specify Washington and could apply to inauguration-related festivities around the country, and that there was no indication that anyone connected with the threat has even tried to enter the United States.

i’m not sure what feingold’s personal interest is in inflating the threat to the u.s. from somalia, but his rhetoric has been quite disingenuous wrt facts there. he was recently in djibouti meeting w/ the u.s. clients there. and he led off his questioning at clinton’s “hearing” feeling out her understanding of the risk somalia presents to u.s. elite (the so-called “national”) interests. he often gets cited as being one of the few u.s. senators to ‘care’ about africans, but i see little honest evaluation on his part to justify such praises.

the push now is to build the acceptance of a (misleadingly-named) national unity govt, which is neither national nor unified in scope & scale. the djibouti agreement, no matter how bogus, is currently the only agreement around and that’s what they were trying to shove down the necks of the rest. now the talk is about adhering to the dictates of the transitional constitution in that a president just has to be named w/i the proscribed period of time no matter what context. it’s completely insane & will not do a thing to influence unity. we’ll have to see how such plans are tolerated. puntland just actually had a smooth presidential election this month. i doubt somali’s will take a blatant foreign hand in their election w/o resistance.

again, it fits into the pattern of deliberate destabilization

on oil in somalia, africa oil corp thinks the prospects are good enough, based on their seismic data, to begin exploratory drilling in the next months, the first in 17 years.

as for overall u.s. interest in somalia, i think it’s a multiplicity of factors, including, but not limited to:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A potential terror threat just before last week’s presidential inauguration turned out to be a ruse, a top military commander said Tuesday.

[NORTHCOM’s Gen. Gene] Renuart, the military commander in charge of domestic defense, said reports pointing to a possible threat from an East Africa terrorist group were the result of claims by another faction and turned out to be untrue.

“It was more a function of two factions who didn’t like each other setting the other up,” Renuart told the Associated Press. He did not identify the other faction.

Meanwhile, did you hear/see the story on NPR about Somali youth in Minnesota? Missing Somali Teens May Be Terrorist Recruits
Assuming the facts are as reported, it sounds like a particularly nasty way of recruiting child soldiers by someone, though some of the youth may not be minors. That the young man in question, and assuming there are others, that none of them has called home is quite troublesome. There is more than one explanation, but I don’t think they involve free will. And the article has a lot of energetic leaping to conclusions.

The African Loft asked me to write something about the 2 piracies in Somalia. I’ve been reading over your comments and links at MoA. My brain is like soup this week due to a virus that finally seems to be leaving. I got a flu shot in the fall so I’m resentful. The piracy is a complicated story to try and condense into a few paragraphs.

Major oil companies who declared force majeure on their Somali assets in the 1990s are reviving their claims to blocks in the unrecognized but relatively peaceful Republic of Somaliland. Industry sources told African Energy that oil companies operating in the territory had received letters from major oil firms including BP (which took over former Somalia player Amoco) and Conoco Phillips warning them to stop work. This represents a dramatic shift in policy by the majors, whose lawyers had previously told them to ignore any companies or government officials working in Somaliland, and may reflect expectations of a change of US policy in the Horn of Africa under President Barack Obama.

– – –

i have watched the coverage from minn, but not that closely. it is being spun pretty hard in the media. the english comments i read in somali forums, comprised largely of those in the diaspora, are skeptical of most the claims. the community spokesperson that most articles feature, i don’t have his name at hand, is not respected, to put it kindly. he has other motives, they say. again, i don’t have many details as i’ve gotten the impression that it is mostly propaganda used, in part, to keep the somali community in the u.s. antagonistic, fearful, and complacent.

Interesting about the Somali youth issue. I was puzzled that they only had the name of one young man, even though they alleged there were as many as a dozen more.

Thanks for the update on the Somali oil. And I continue to read your comments at MoA, which are extremely informative.

The link from the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief in my post today talks some about China and Zambia. I don’t know much about the Jamestown Foundation. The rather odd subtitle on their main page says “information without political agenda from Eurasia, China, and the World of Terrorism”. Which makes me think they do have a political agenda. Looking at their fellows and board, they have a distinctly “free” market capitalist look.

Interesting profile, and even more neocon than I thought. I did recognize some of the names when I looked at their fellows and board, but the profile fleshes that out. I was surprised that they seem to be playing down the threat of China in Africa, rather than playing it up, at least for now. I also noticed that their criticisms of the economic policies of African governments seemed to say that those governments should have followed more of the advice of the World Bank and IMF, rather than more wisely ignored it, as Malawi finally did. I don’t think they said it explicitly, but it was certainly implied.